“400 Lonely Things is a predominantly instrumental studio project with dark ambient leanings. We make use of any blend of electronic and acoustic instruments, but tend to dwell on samples, minor chord structures, woozy repetition, and infrequent but hypnotic percussion.

The end results are not quite noise, not quite ambience, and not quite music: collages that are sometimes comforting, subdued and sadly pretty, but just as often nightmarish and bizarre. Often our focus seems to express an anxious and bittersweet nostalgia, longing for a time that may have never actually existed; a kind of half-remembered pleasure or half-forgotten pain.  And while that sounds pretentious and overwrought, we are too - so it all works out nicely.

400 Lonely Things is Craig Varian and Jonathan McCall and we’ve been recording together since 1988.”

400 Lonely Things has just released their sixth album, Be Still Life. It’s their take on Psychedelic Folk-ish Ambiance, as seen through their lonesome, moss-covered lens.  In the player at the bottom of this page, you’ll find Swiss Miss (For Bergman), which is track one from this new album.

Their second album The Late Show (pictured above) and third album A Barsoomian Lullaby Volume One | A Snow White Egg (pictured below) are both available now.

While The Late Show wanders into creepy guitar and sample based jazz territory, and features some of their most experimental outings, including the Tchaikovsky meets David Sylvian meets Gollum tone-poem mashup “Bullfight at Swan Lake”.  A Barsoomian Lullaby Volume One | A Snow White Egg is a very different sort of album.  It’s a solo recording by Craig, centering around his memories of reading The Martian Novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, attempting to capture his longing for this nebulous and exotic imaginary Barsoomian landscape.  For a 400 Lonely Things album, it’s quietly adventurous in a dreamy sort of way and even a bit beautiful.

A completely remixed version of their self-titled first album (originally released in a vinyl edition only in 2003 and pictured above) is also available now.

Two more albums by 400 Lonely Things, including Tonight of the Living Dead (pictured below) - a remix project using dialog-free audio treatments from the 1968 George Romero film Night of the Living Dead as its only ingredients hit the retailers recently.

Along with Minutes A.D., a collection of vigil and memorial recordings for Jonathan’s father.

All of these albums can be downloaded at most online retailers, including:

Amazon

eMusic

iTunes

Rhapsody

Fully packaged editions on compact disc with uncompressed audio of all 400 Lonely Things albums are available now at 400lonelythings.com

Listen to 400 Lonely Things in the player below:

Visit their their myspace page here.

Very little pain now.